LAHORE, Dec 8: The University of Health Sciences’ project of establishing its new campus on 50-acre land at Kala Shah Kaku has been delayed for an ‘indefinite period’ owing to non-availability of required funds from the ministry of finance (MoF).

The university requiring Rs900 million for the completion of the project in a three-year stipulated period had initially sought a ‘meagre’ sum of Rs7.7 million from the Higher Education Commission (HEC) for the construction of the boundary wall.

The commission, however, informed the UHS that since the finance ministry had refused to release funds for any new project by ‘all’ public sector universities in the country it could not do any thing in this regard.

The UHS officials fear that 500-acre land, which has been acquired against Rs100 million provided by the Punjab government may be encroached upon. “We are worried as land mafia can target it, therefore, we have been writing to the authorities concerned to at least release the required amount for the boundary wall,” a UHS official said and requested the provincial government to help it out in this regard.

The official said the varsity’s dream to produce 400 PhDs in different disciplines by 2020 might not be achieved under the circumstances. Under the project, the new campus will have new departments of genetics, bio-medical engineering, bio-informatics and behavioural sciences. Besides it will have an advanced research hospital, sports complex, auditorium and boys and girls hostels.

In its existing campus the M Phil leading to PhD programmes under way are the basic health sciences, autonomy, physiology, bio-chemistry, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology, immunology, nursing and allied health sciences.

Since the freezing of HEC grants by the federal finance ministry this year, the commission has asked the varsities to explore new avenues to generate their revenue. Most of the varsities have reportedly started concentrating on self-finance programmes to generate revenue.

The country’s 60 public sector universities have already been facing financial problems because of this reason.

“Continuation of the ongoing projects seems to be very difficult and under the present circumstances the research initiatives will be affected largely,” an official said and maintained that around 100 HEC-funded projects initiated by various public varsities had been badly affected owing to stoppage of funds by the HEC.